To Live Forever

by Robotech_Master

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They had finally done it. The scientists had unlocked the secrets of genetics to perfect cloning, and had figured out how to “read” memories and thoughts out of your mind. There was no longer any reason to die. Whatever parts of your body wore out could be replaced, and before too long the medicos would even be able to tell your cells themselves to revitalize and grow younger without that being necessary.

Suddenly, our lives no longer ended at a horizon that was approaching ever closer. Now they stretched out to infinity, and we were laughing and and slapping each other on the back and congratulating each other on having “made it,” as if it were somehow due to our own perseverance in living this long—instead of the happy accident that we were born now rather than 50 years ago. But still, ours was the last generation who would ever have to grow up fearing death.

Nonetheless, sociologists would puzzle for years over why the announcement of this medical breakthrough triggered a huge rash of mass suicides.

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Comments

Average Reader Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5

  1. To Live Forever

    Mask By The Moon's Buddy Icon Mask By The Moon

    Posted 9 months ago

    Easy. Immortality is a curse, not a blessing. To be stuck on this imperfect world without being able to move on to a better place would be terrible.

    =just a thought=

  2. To Live Forever

    Robotech_Master's Buddy Icon Robotech_Master

    Posted 9 months ago

    You know, the thing that always gets me about all those stories with the “after a few hundred years, we’d get tired of living” premise is that nobody writing them can actually speak from experience.

    Let me live for five hundred or a thousand years, in the peak of health, then ask me how willing I’d be to kick off.

  3. To Live Forever

    Batak Beatrix's Buddy Icon Batak Beatrix

    Posted 9 months ago

    5.0 out of 5 stars

    I totally agree with that. I’d have no problem having 500-1000 years to perfect my existence.

    But I definitely can appreciate where you took the story.

  4. To Live Forever

    White Hat's Buddy Icon White Hat

    Posted 9 months ago

    4.0 out of 5 stars

    Well, there’s certainly a difference between immortal lifespan and true immortality… Not being able to die at all would be horrible, in a way, since it would take all the hard risk out of everything… but just being immune to death-by-aging still seems like a good thing.

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